The Serpent Rider wrote:Even with a fan mounted to blow air on the card it wasn't 100% stable, it became stable only after I downclocked it from 90 MHz to 85 MHz.
That is a clear indication that your card dying/malfunctioning and overall power of the system has nothing to do with it.
That's possible, but how do you explain that the same card was perfectly stable on PII 350? Trust me, I played *a lot* with that card, it was my first V2 card. It was installed first on a low socket 7 system (Cyrix 233), it ran flawlessly and very cool (the chips were barely warmer than the ambient temperature).
After a few years I replaced the system with Athlon 900, I kept the Voodoo2, but, to my surprise, it would freeze. I had a PII 350 computer (I bought it very cheaply from the place were I worked), so I decided to test it there. It worked without any problems, it was warm, but i could keep my finger on any chip, I'd say it was around 45C. On Athlon 900 my finger got burns after just 1-2 seconds, I think it was above 70C. And, of course, it crashed.
I did swap the card between systems and played games for hours...
Like I said and like you pointed out, it might have been a broken card, but I think it's weird that it only failed on Athlon. Other people had similar experiences, so... I don't know, faulty cards or not, it's better to be safe than sorry.